Three Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese Hizbollah group will only be freed in exchange for "all the prisoners" in Israel, Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi said in Damascus Wednesday.

"Hizbollah's prisoners will only be freed in exchange for the release of all the prisoners in Israel," Kharazi said on arrival in Damascus, without specifying if was referring to both Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in the Jewish state.

An Iranian embassy official, Ali Ahsan, told AFP that he left it "to the discretion of the Hizbollah leader", Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.

In Beirut, Nasrallah's deputy said the Shiite Muslim fundamentalist group would accept the mediation of UN Chief Kofi Annan on the soldiers seized on the Lebanese-Israeli border on October 7.

But Sheikh Naim Kassem also told a press conference that they would not be freed without some form of exchange - DAMASCUS (AFP)